Akame Ga Kill!: Kill The World (ON TEMPORARY HIATUS)
by Compass Wind
Summary: In an alternate universe, Chelsea lives on as a frail civilian (due to mechanical implants) instead of dying by Kurome's hand. Hounded by guilt over her own betrayal, she attempts to commit suicide, only for the very person who should have killed her back then to save her life. As strange happenings begin to occur in the capitol, Chelsea is forced to kill once more.
1. Chapter 1

**[1.0]**

The dim morning light illuminates Chelsea's room, rousing her from her sleep - she had forgotten to close the curtains in her haste to reach the relative paradise that was the land of her dreams. Now, she was paying the price for her negligence as her visions of happiness blurred away, morphing into the harsh, overwhelming greyness of reality far earlier than she would have hoped.

She attempts to flex her fingers, her amber eyes half lidded as she tries one last time to fall back to sleep. As always, it is futile. There are often times where she wishes that she will never leave her dreams. In a world that is hell-bent on making her pay tenfold for her past sins, her only refuge lies in sleep. Thankfully, the Lord is at least kind enough to refrain from granting her nightmares.

A familiar beeping sound, followed by a sharp pain in almost all her joints reminds her once more of that past she has been trying so hard - and in vain - to forget. The sleek, white metal of her prosthetic limbs is merged perfectly with her skin. Man and machine, linked by necessity into one single deplorable hybrid. When they had first been installed, she would cry out with pain whenever she had to reactivate them, and the jolts of electricity produced by the machine would course through her veins. By now, that pain had dulled. But the memories remain as fresh as ever, unrelenting, overpowering, a different kind of pain, one that time doesn't heal.

"I'm sorry." She murmurs to nobody in particular, forcing herself into a standing position, "I'm sorry for everything."

It's ritual that she repeats every morning, as if repeating those hollow words every day would somehow redeem her when the time for final judgment arrives. The lives she had involuntarily - no, quite voluntarily - taken, paid back with nothing more than words and remorse. She knows that it isn't enough. But it's all she has in her. A well that has already run dry can not give water. There's nothing left. Nothing. The sleeping pills are gone, used up. There is no dreamland for her to escape to, no place for her to hide from the crushing wave that is the avatar of her guilt.

A single tear rolls down her cheek. She wonders for a moment if it is one of self-pity.

"I'll pay it all back now." She murmurs, "Like I said I will."

* * *

Tatsumi. He had been the one to save her. To carry her mutilated, twisted body back to the base that was to be no more. He had procured the transplants for her, the limbs, the new life that she didn't deserve or want. He's still alive, out there, somewhere. That thought grants her some solace. At least she had been able to save him.

 _He hates me now. I'm sure of that much._

Her right arm and left leg, severed completely. Fingers on her left hand, either broken or torn off. Her left eye cut open, destroyed forever. Multiple, deep lacerations in her neck and back. Only her right leg had been left untouched, and that was destroyed soon after. It's a miracle that she's even alive, as empty a husk as she is. The pain had been overwhelming. Under that pain, she had broken. Anyone would.

 _Anything. Just make it stop. I'll tell you anything. Where it is. When to come. Stop. Please._

That girl. That black-eyed devil. She had been the one. The one who tore her body apart, all for those four golden words, the words that should have signified the victory of the Empire and the fall of Night Raid: 'I'll tell you anything'. The words that haunt her memory even now. She had been the reason. The reason that they lost everything.

 _I don't deserve this. I should be the one that lies buried in the ground, not them. I don't deserve anything._

After she had recovered, the base was attacked. It was her fault. Tatsumi and Akame - they had made it out alive. She had made sure of that, at least. In her decrepit shell of a body, she had done what she could, put those years of trickery and deceit to good use. Thousands of icy spears had pierced her body, pinning it to the wall as it bled and convulsed. That woman was a sadist, and sadists have simple motivations. The Ice Queen had done what the devil could not - broken the mind without breaking the body. Her screams of pain, initially faked but eventually all too real, had been enough to draw her attention away from the two survivors for several precious minutes.

But everyone else, they died. Every last one of them. Killed. The smiles they had once wore were transformed into tranquil sleep at best and contorted screams of pain at worst as the life bled from their bodies, and she watched. Helplessly. Because she had broken. Because she had given in.

 _Because of me._

Since that night, she had lived a discreet, eventless life. The Grand Chariot had allowed her that much, more than she should have had. She grew out her hair already-long hair to cover up the metal that had replaced her lost eye. She learned to use her new limbs. She survived, barely, pointlessly, just for the sake of surviving. The sake of not having to face the truth, of being distracted, for as long as possible. The sake of delaying the day when the people who were once her friends would pass judgment on her.

But those words never left her head. The way he had looked at her as they fled into the forest, his emerald eyes full to the brim with hatred, blood flowing down his face like water from a busted dam, mingling with his tears to form thousands of scarlet vipers, hissing in unison, their voices dripping with the sickly poison of rage.

"I'll never forgive you. Never."

Several years since then, the empire had fallen and the new republic that she was originally supposed to help build had risen to replace it. After Esdeath's failed coup d'état, Commander Najenda, who hadn't been present at the base on that night, took the throne and gained control of a shattered kingdom. Soon, all was well in the world, and the destruction the empire and the war to bring it down had wrought was undone almost overnight.

* * *

Chelsea. That is her name. Chelsea. She repeats this to herself every day, and today is no different. There's a sense of comfort in having a constant in life, something that never changes. So, for as long as she could, she found solace in the fact that, no matter what happened, her name would be Chelsea.

 _I've always hated pain._

Her apartment is a sparse, cozy little abode, almost spartan in its simplicity. A bedroom and a kitchen, with a small common area barely big enough for a single person. Walls and ceiling painted a faint brownish colour, the colour of wood, reminding her of better days. She would often sit on the one, sad little couch, resting her feet on the table, and allow her thoughts to drift to where they would always, inevitably, end up - feelings of self-pity, self-hatred, self-whatever-it-is.

 _A coward. That's what I am, a coward. So I decided to run away._

She had made all the preparations the day before. Contacted _him_ one last time. The letter should reach him within a week. She had apologised, said that she could never give enough back, then apologised again. There was nothing else she could do. Chelsea - Chelsea would have been able to do something. But she could not.

She had visited their graves, cleaned them, scrubbed them, alone, with her aching fingers until they were sparkling, each one adorned with a wreath of flowers. How can a flower balance out the loss of a life? It can't. But it's all she can give.

It's all over now. Finally, she will have peace. A peace she doesn't deserve.

 _See? Even now, I continue to ask for too much._

She makes her way into the living room, leaning against the wall for support. Her leg, which is still in the process of fully booting up, sends sharp spasms of pain through her body as it connects itself with all her nerves. Her headphones, stained red, are draped over her neck. Her right hand closes around the balcony door handle, and she steps out. She had done her research. From this height, death will be instant. There won't be any pain. Only peace. The embrace of death is cold, but for her, it will be warm.

Her leg continues to send lightning bolts through her body as she lifts it onto the railings.

 _Just a little bit more. A little bit more, and it will be the end._

 _It's a pity I won't be able to see them. But I guess there's just too much space between heaven and hell. I don't have a right to see them._

She looks down. The ground is far, far away, a distance that is reassuring but at the same time terrifying. It's still early, and nobody is out on the streets. For a second, her heart wavers. Fear. She is no stranger to fear. Soon, however, there will be no more fear. Only darkness. A soft gust of wind blows through the air, rustling her hair. The hair that he had caressed as he waited for her to recover from her injuries. He had done it for her, not for himself. Those hands had been so comforting, so warm. A distant memory.

She had, for some reason, expected it to be raining when she ended it all, and the bright, hopeful light of the rising sun in a cloudless sky seemed almost like an insult. Like the world was taunting her, laughing at how impudent she was to imagine that the weather would change for her.

She reaches into her pocket, pulling out a lollipop, and gives it one last lick, trying to savour it's sweetness but being unable to. Instead, all she feels is a strange sense of curiosity, like a cat inspecting a ball of yarn for the first time.

 _I never noticed I'd become this thin._

She leans forward and falls.

* * *

She does not fall far. Almost instantly, a hand to grabs onto the back of the grey, unwashed, wrinkly hoodie she was wearing, leaving her dangling there by the scruff of her neck like a defeated, broken piñata. It's a familiar hand, too familiar. Thin and pale and cold. The hand that had once held the blade that had cut into her skin thousands of times too many, that had started and ended everything, that had fluttered over every single part of her body, tearing it apart like thousands of needles through a sheet of wet paper.

 _The sword slowly moves over her skin, like a snake, drawing intricate, dancing patterns with blood. A finger falls off. Just make it stop. Another. I'll tell you anything. Her eye is forced open, and the blade drawn carefully across it, barely touching. Where it is. When to come. Another time. Stop. Please._

She looks up, even though she knows what she'll see. She notes that her mouth is already open, maybe to scream, but no sound comes out.

 _No. Right hand. Stop. Left hand. I said I'll tell you. A toenail. Please. The eye again. Why?_

The black devil girl, hanging by her feet from the balcony above the one she had jumped off, a single arm extended downwards to grab onto her neck, the other hanging limp in midair. Her dull, black eyes are devoid of light, like two dark, underground caverns, never to see the light of day. Her mouth opens, and the voice that escapes it is cuttingly blank and lacking in emotion.

"Do you want it, Chelsea? To be free of pain forever?"

* * *

 **A/N: Whew! That's it for now. Just to be clear, note that this is an AU - in which, instead of killing Chelsea, Kurome tortures her and uses the information she gained to lead the Jaegers into a midnight raid (oh, the irony) on the Night Raid main base, killing everybody save for a select few. That's about all you need to know for now :)**

 **It's been a while since I finished watching Akame Ga Kill (only read a bit of the manga), so some canonicity issues might be present, and I apologise for that. Chelsea in particular is going to be particularly OOC, as a result of her trauma (and my inability to write well). I was lying in bed after drinking too much coffee and thought this up, so it's probably far from perfect.**


	2. Chapter 2

**[1.1]**

"Do you want it, Chelsea? To be free of pain forever?"

An alluring promise, a faraway dream, something she had longed for. But such promises and those like them are often too good to be true, too beautiful to be flawless. All her experiences, all the things she had lost because she had been too hopeful - asked for too much - they should have taught her that much by now.

 _I know that._

But she is a weak person. She knows that as well, has had it proven to her too many times. So even though she knows she should know better, knows that she _does_ know better, she hesitates. The insistent coldness of Kurome's hand continues to burn into the flesh on the back of her neck like a malevolent flame, allowing her no peace.

Then, a strange tingling in her limbs, followed by a soft whirling sound, tells her that her arms and legs - those cursed, disgustingly white, metallic things that have forced her to go on living when she could, should have left this world behind, weightless and formless at last - have been switched off.

There is an on/off switch, a little cyan blue ring, connected to a small plate at the back of her neck where it merges with the skull, beneath her long, shaggy hair. There, it would be able to send signals to all places in her body. They had placed it there so that it would fill in the role of those precious bones and nerves and whatnot that had disappeared back then, torn out of her body with disturbing ease. Kurome must have flicked it off with her free hand.

"Let... let me go." She says. She had intended it to be a forceful statement, a command, but it comes out as a desperate plea, her voice shaking slightly with something that she told herself wasn't fear, while knowing perfectly well that it was. "Let go of me."

The black-eyed girl does not respond, and with an impossibly smooth motion, flips herself into an upright position and vaults over the balcony railing on the above floor in a single, effortless arc, taking Chelsea's limp form with her. There is an incredible lightness to her movements, almost like what she is carrying so easily with one hand is not the weight of an entire person (albeit an incredibly thin one), but a rag doll.

A rag doll. Without strength, without will, without purpose or life, it's only purpose to be tossed around and played with. In a way, she thinks, it's an apt comparison. She doesn't struggle as Kurome wordlessly carries her limp form into the flat above her own. She can't struggle, not when her limbs are not hers to move. This thought crosses her mind often - that she is living in a body that is more machine than flesh, more someone else's than her own.

 _It's okay. I don't deserve a body. I should have lost it back then._

The interior of the room she finds herself in is a far stretch from her own, almost featureless home. The floor is littered with all sorts of things that she presumes are junk but can't really make out in the darkness, which is lit up only by the faint blue a single computer screen. The pale glow frames the silhouette of a dishevelled young man, wearing what looks to be a dark blue jacket. He turns around when the two enter and reaches for the light switch, instantly flooding the room with a soft, strangely warm yellow light.

Chelsea's eyes widen slightly as Kurome gently sets her body down on an unoccupied bean bag to the side of the room, surrounded by clothes, books, rough pencil sketches of things that she can't quite put names on, all dumped haphazardly on the floor. The man sitting at the chair is unmistakably Wave, the sailer, owner of Grand Chariot - but at the same time, someone markedly different.

She had always remembered Wave as a kind, optimistic young man, almost naive. But above all, he had been _young_ , had that spring in his step, that confidence in the way he had carried himself, that inexplicable energy of youth in all of his movements. His blue eyes had shone with a sort of light that Chelsea had once recognised in her own but had now lost.

The Wave sitting before her now, though, is someone else. His face is leaner than she remembered it being, covered with an unkempt stubble. His hair is longer than it was before, sticking up in odd angles and drooping, tiredly, over his eyes - once shining, now dull, dead, emotionless. No light reflects from them. He slouches forward on his chair, the perfect posture of a sailor and a soldier having disappeared. His clothes are wrinkled and, while unmistakably the same as the ones he had been wearing when they first met, now seem to hang loose over his body.

Kurome, too, looks different from before. Her already thin form seems to have shrunken even further, her pale skin becoming even paler, looking more like a ghoul than a girl. Her hair is messier now, it's previous blackness somehow even more overpowering, like it's sucking the light out of the air, devouring it and leaving nothing behind. A few, blood red highlights can be seen - which is strange, considering that Kurome had never been one to dye her hair.

Esdeath's attempted coup must have taken it's toll on them. Judging by the way they are now, it must have been even worse than she had been lead to believe from the few snippets of conversation she had heard regarding the matter.

Before Chelsea can speak, Wave lets out a long sigh, and greets her.

"I'm sorry for bringing you here under these circumstances," he says, his voice soft and sort of raspy, "But I had no choice. Top secret orders, from Commander Najenda. She asked that you receive no prior warning."

It's a strange feeling, lying paralysed under the gaze of two people who were once your enemies, one having saved your life when it shouldn't have been, the other being the one who would have taken it. She finds herself praying for her own safety, then for her own death, then both at once, two inner voices, one of fear and the other of despair, intertwining into a relentless crescendo that echoed on the inside of her mind.

"Water?"

It's a stranger feeling, being offered a glass of iced water by the person who had made you unable to procure one for yourself without the aid of several thoughtless machines, designed to help you live but only really serving to delay, painfully, your inevitable death.

Her arms can not move, but her mouth opens ever so slightly, her parched throat and the tingling pain it caused suddenly coming to light, the previous distracting circumstances suddenly stripped away. Taking that as an affirmative, Kurome steps forward and delivers the cup slowly to her lips, in a manner all too similar to the way she had approached her prone body years ago, a maniacal grin on her face and a bloodied blade in her hands.

 _Pain, like she has never known it before. Blood, seeping from parts of her body she had never even known existed, a crimson river spewing forth, tainting the grass beneath her form, painting it red. The blade swings through the air, without finesse, without control, propelled by rage and hate and a sadistic pleasure. The black eyed devil's laughter blends with her own screams and pleas to form an ear-grating but strangely entrancing symphony of uncontrolled sounds._

She attempts to pull away but can not, and the cold water refuses to go down her throat, which had been dried by the air conditioning of her bedroom over the night. She chokes, her body spasming as it rejects the devil's gift, sending it spilling out of her mouth and onto her t-shirt, turning it's pale grey into a slightly darker shade.

 _Corruption. Spreading darkness. Who am I to accept such gift?_

Kurome pulls away, and a silence falls over them. Wave winces.

"Sorry." He says, standing up, pushing his body off the chair using both arms, like a weary old man. "Kurome, do you mind leaving? Just for now?"

The girl nods and averts her eyes, a small gesture barely visible unless you are looking for it, and, turning silently, leaves the room. A wraith, an apparition, fading away into the darkness, just as discreetly and noiselessly as it had manifested itself into the light.

Chelsea watches the thin form of the devil girl disappearing behind the closing door, not noticing when the sailor had circles around her and lifts her head up, reactivating her limbs. At least, until the beeping sound and the searing pain thrusts that fact in her face, like it had only minutes ago. Minutes ago, she had finally mustered up the courage to do the deed. Now, like everything else, that courage had been robbed from her.

 _Enough of your self pity. There are others who have lost more, and done less._

"You can drink now," he says, gesturing to the translucent, pink plastic cup on the table next to her, the kind you would find in an IKEA store, labeled as being for a child. Strange, so out of place. His voice is soft, calm, and warm. Going out of his way to be welcoming, afraid of hurting her. Almost like a grandfather, consoling a child.

 _Stop it. Don't talk like how_ he _used to talk. He won't talk like that anymore, I'm sure. Because of me._

She stares at the cup. At once, it beckons to her and repulses her, reminds her of a time when she was still a child, naively laughing her life away. The water that she had coughed up weighs down her shirt, pulling her down. She knows that in reality, the weight is negligible, but the reality of the mind is different from the reality of the body, and no matter what she does, she can't bring herself to lift a finger.

Instead, without thinking, three words escape her lips: "I hate ice."

Wave pulls back and winces, but hides it quickly, and well. "Don't we all." He mutters, slumping back onto his chair. Once again, silence wraps itself around them. "Don't we all."

* * *

 **A/N: Whew, that's the second chapter! No coffee this time (only green tea, which isn't quite the same), so it might be worse than the previous one XD. The next chapter, which I'm working on, will probably be in the form of a massive info dump about the AU and all the differences in the timeline. It might take a while, though - I've got a ton of other ideas I want to pursue, and another fanfic should be coming up soon.**

 **Again, thanks for reading.**


	3. Chapter 3

**[1.2]**

"You may be wondering why you're here." Wave says, breaking the silence. "The short answer is that you are one of the few people still live who knows - knew - Najenda personally."

Knew. That word carries with it a massive set of implications, most of which she doesn't want to think about.

"You probably haven't heard of this, considering your habits and how quickly the leak was covered up, but there are people beginning to suspect that the Najenda currently ruling the republic is, in fact, someone else." he continues, "If you haven't guessed by now, our job is to figure out what is actually going on. Needless to say, this is classified information. One word about it and you're dead, no questions asked."

"There are a lot of people insisting that Najenda's personality and appearance have changed drastically since she became ruler. The problem here is that most accounts differ even on key points, so we've deemed them unreliable. However, there's one little piece of evidence that we can't ignore." Turning around, Wave taps a few keys on the keyboard of his computer, bringing up what looks like a video and beckoning for Chelsea to come and watch.

She sighs, using the arms that are at the same time so foreign and familiar to her to push herself into a standing position, staggering over to where Wave is sitting. The image on the screen is a familiar one - the small garden inside of the Royal Palace (now renamed the House of the Senate), a place she has been to several times before. The grainy texture of the visual is enough to confirm that it's source is one of the old security cameras that had been planted there.

* * *

 _Najenda enters the courtyard, turning back over her shoulder to speak with someone, most likely a guest. The dark, olive green of her metallic right arm glints in the moonlight. A shadow moves, indicating that the person she had been speaking to has left, probably to go home after a banquet._

 _The white-haired general-turned-ruler makes her way to the centre of the garden, stopping within a ring created by some potted plants and two curved benches. She stops there and looks upwards, as if she's admiring the moon and stars. The camera is not tilted at an angle where it's possible to see what she's looking at, but the lazy, unfocused look in her eyes is enough to imply that the sky itself is the thing she is observing._

 _Then, all of a sudden, without any warning or precedent, her body explodes into thousands of red shards, dissipating into the cold night air._

* * *

Chelsea stares at the screen for a bit longer, her eyes distant. To anybody else, she probably looks like she's deep in thought, maybe trying to make sense of the video. But she isn't, even though part of her wishes that she is, if only to be free from the strange, crawling sense of unease that's creeping over her body, as if she had just stepped on a anthill.

Something almost entirely foreign to her is coursing through her half-mechanical veins, a forgotten sensation, reminding her of a time long before she became what she had become - an empty, worthless shell of a human being. A time where she would have been able to look at herself and see something more than someone who ought to be dead, gone, sleeping forever.

By all rights, it should be a pleasant sensation. But somehow, it isn't.

 _Why are you so picky? Why do you keep demanding more? Why are you never satisfied?_

She knows that had she been alone, she would most likely have spent the next hour or so seated there, unmoving, chasing a nonexistent answer around and around in her mind. Like an amateur detective trying to track down a master criminal, desperately searching for something that's always barely out of reach, taunting her with it's presence but also it's elusiveness, always tantalisingly close but never close enough.

It's become a habit by now. With nowhere to go, nobody to meet, and nothing to do, her only source of 'entertainment'', if you can even call it that, is the constant swirl of conflicting thoughts that run rampant in her mind.

However, for better or for worse, she isn't alone.

"That's not all," Wave says, his voice pulling her out of her thoughts and back into the featureless greyness of the real word, "Other strange things are happening. I've heard reports that Esdeath has been seen near the northern town of Frostrend. She's dead, of course... died that night. But with Najenda's identity being called into question, we can guess that there might be some sort of connection between that and her reappearance."

"So far, we haven't gone very far. Only when we get into contact with Akame and Tatsumi will we officially begin the investigation. You may continue to use your apartment, and if you ever need anything, we'll be right upstairs."

Chelsea blinks. She ought to have expected this, considering that he had mentioned gathering people who knew Najenda near the start of their one-way conversation, but the idea that she'll be meeting the people that had tormented her thoughts for years isn't one that comes naturally.

 _Why? Why now? You want me look them in the eye? After that? What do you expect me to do?_

Being simultaneously filled with dread and hope is a strange feeling, not only because of their conflicting natures, but also because both emotions are ones that she's unfamiliar with. She had spent a long time living with nothing to hope for and nothing to dread, so it's natural that she would have forgotten them. When the most valuable thing you have to lose is a life you don't care for, and all the things you wish for are so completely beyond your reach, the spirits of hope and dread don't tend to visit you often.

"Before you go, there's something else I've got to give you." Wave sighs, interrupting her thoughts for the third time that day. Spinning around on his chair and reaching into a drawer under the desk his desktop is placed on, he pulls out a disturbingly familiar bag labelled 'snacks'. "Here. These are experimental drugs the Senate is working on. They're supposed to completely kill your pain receptors and heighten your reflexes and strength significantly. Of course, there are... side effects, so only use it if you have to."

She notes that there's a slight, spiteful edge to his voice.

"If you want, you may leave now. No need to worry about checking in on us - I'll call you if we need you."

* * *

Whenever she feels the need to leave the relative comfort of her home, her go-to destination is usually the small cafe just across the road. It's a comfortable place, just popular enough for her to blend into the background without it being stuffy or cramped. The coffee they serve there is cheap, and very tasty. Overall, perfect for her needs, which are few and very easy to accommodate.

Sitting near the back corner, she watches as the people of the New Capitol walk through the streets, chatting, laughing, more often than not carrying a bag full of goods bought after a nice, long day within the city's many markets. The consistent regularity of their happiness - shallow, but at the same time more genuine than anything she has ever had - it calms her, makes her feel at ease.

The cup of coffee standing on the table in front of her slowly loses its warmth, losing the battle against the cool autumn air.

She has never liked her coffee hot, not like _he_ did. The burning sensation of a boiling liquid on her tongue had never been in any way pleasant and never will be. Lukewarm is her preferred temperature, although she can deal with cold if that is more readily available. When one lives off the much-improved but still meagre pension for retired soldiers, they have to take what they can get. As the old saying goes, beggars can't be choosers.

Lukewarm. Up till this point, her life had been all about avoiding extremes. Boiling and freezing, love and hatred, elation and despair. She had experienced them all, and discovered that she hated it.

There's no peace in extremes, no stability. Even the greatest love can be stripped away in the matter of seconds, transformed into something more sinister, as easily as tearing a piece of paper in two. In the end, even the greatest jewel, the strongest weapon, the most beautiful painting - they're worthless unless you manage to retain them.

Like the happiness of those people, so casually strolling down the street, so confident in the fact that their happiness will remain theirs. It's something so much plainer than the flame between lovers, but at the same time so infinitely more valuable. Lukewarm.

She'd know, after all. Years ago, she had been a reaper. A destroyer, bringing about the ultimate punishment, and at the same time the ultimate reward - the never-ending, mind-numbingly constant neutrality of death, pure and simple. She had watched as bonds of love and hatred were shattered by a single well-aimed prick of a pin, the subtle flick of a poisoned dagger. Such is an assassin's job.

But even after the world burnt down around them, destroyed and built again, the happiness born from daily life remains. Constant. Never-ending. Shallow. Plain. But at the same time, infinitely more valuable.

She sighs and reaches forward with her left hand, the one that is still, at least partially, made up of flesh and bone. The cup of coffee fits snuggly inside her unsteady grasp, what remains of its warmth seeping through the paper and entering her palm. The feeling of warmth on her skin is yet another sensation that has become largely foreign to her. It's one of the few ones she truly misses.

As she gingerly brings the cup up to her lips, gently blowing on the liquid to ensure that it had cooled down, everything stops.

The people who were walking down the street stop walking, their mouths frozen mid-sentence, faces pleasantly contorted with a laughter that started but didn't finish. The waiter pouring orange juice for a grinning child stops moving, the liquid overflowing from the cup and onto the nice tablecloth beneath it, staining the white fabric a sickly yellow colour. The man spooning rice into his mouth stops just as he tilts the spoon forwards, causing the rice to spill back onto the plate on the table in front of him.

All of their bodies are surrounded by a pale crimson red glow, like a faint, water-colour outline drawn on by a mediocre artist. The glow binds them, stifling their movement, forces them under it's control. Then, completely synchronised, all the people turn to each other, opening their mouths to speak with a voice that isn't their own.

A slightly mechanical, raspy voice begins to speak, it's volume being amplified by the thousands as it escapes through the throats of every single person in the metropolis, echoing through the streets in a cascading, otherworldly symphony.

"Good afternoon, citizens of the New Capitol. From now on, you may refer to me as the AUTHOR. With all capital letters, if you please."

* * *

A/N: That's it for now :) The technology in this AU is a bit more up to date with current standards, so people have access to computers, surveillance cameras, and the like. I mean, in a country that can create guns capable of blowing up cities, I'm sure a computer or two won't be much of a problem for them. I imagine that the cities would be a bit more modern as well. And in the end, my story, my rules :P

Thanks for reading.


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